Breathe
by pizzaunicorn
Summary: Her eyes sting with tears at how cold the girl is already becoming. Rachel would be happy for the blonde to wake up, call her 'Treasure Trail', and never speak to her again if only she could hear her voice and see those fiery hazel eyes once more.


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.

**A/N: **This is, I think, the first serious piece I've ever written. Also, it's probably the first piece I've written lacking smut. In fact, if the readers deem it necessary, I may just have to write a smutty companion fic in which Quinn thanks Rachel properly... Let me know!

* * *

Rachel sits alone in the corner of the choir room watching her club mates socialize and enjoy finger foods as they celebrate their victory at sectionals. She wishes she could join them, but knows that they probably wouldn't be pleased wish her presence. So she opts to watch from afar, her only company a single cupcake sitting on a napkin in her lap. Finn has tried to include her in some of the games the rest have been playing, but so far the only interaction she has had with the others is a few glares sent her way. She resists the urge to roll her eyes when Finn once again glances over at her like an oversized lost puppy before going back to his war game with Puck on their handhelds. He's sweet, but she's been over him for a while now.

She lets her eyes wander over the rest of her club mates. Artie is picking along on his guitar as Kurt and Mercedes play a duet of Womanizer on the piano. Sam and Mike are having a dance off of sorts against Mr. Schuester and are definitely winning if the teacher's outdated moves and the matching expressions of horror on the boys' faces are any indication as their instructor attempts to moonwalk. Tina is watching from her seat in the bleachers and making moon eyes at Mike. Rachel just barely resists rolling her eyes at the couple when the girl blows a kiss at the gangly boy and can't stop the scoff that escapes when the dancer receives and returns it with equal enthusiasm.

She supposes she shouldn't be bitter, but then again the first boy she thought she had really and truly loved (though she had come to the conclusion that she was simply blinded by the novelty of finding someone as driven as she) had _egged _her and she and Finn never seemed to be interested in the other simultaneously. To say she was in no mood to witness sickening displays of affection would be a gross understatement.

She sighs and looks away from the happy couple and to the far corner of the room where Santana and Brittany are engrossed with each other, sitting against the wall, thighs touching and pinkies linked. The Latina shares one of her rare smiles with the blonde before she realizes they're being watched and sends a guarded glare Rachel's way. The unhappy expression itself is enough to redirect the diva's gaze and she lets her eyes fall on the only other solitary teen in the room besides herself. Quinn. The blonde has a well-worn book open in her lap and is sitting cross-legged on the floor several feet away from her fellow Cheerios, her cheek resting on her fist and her elbow digging into her knee as she focuses on the words on the page.

Quinn is the one member of the club that Rachel still hasn't managed to figure out in the slightest. The girl puts up so many barriers and her emotional state is perpetually unreadable to her friends and teammates. Even during her pregnancy the previous year, it was a rare occurrence to catch the former Cheerios captain in a vulnerable moment. Still, Rachel has always had a fascination of sorts with the cryptic blonde. Whether that fascination is due to the girl's guarded hazel eyes, her husky voice, or the way her creamy thighs peek out between the pleats of her skirt (she isn't blind!), there is just _something _that draws her to Quinn despite her defensive and occasionally cruel demeanor. She sometimes questions if it is just a silly school girl's crush or something more.

She is drawn from her thoughts when the girl in question shifts and gazes disinterestedly about the room. She sighs and rises from the floor, knees cracking. Rachel watches, mute, as the blonde stretches her stiff muscles, pale arms extended above her head, back arched. After carefully placing her book near her bag, the cheerleader makes her way to the table covered in snacks sent to the practice by proud parents. Rachel is sure she sees the blonde glance self-consciously to the corner where Brittany and Santana are still wrapped up in each other before carefully selecting one of the fancy looking chocolates Kurt had brought and practically inhaling it. She quickly glances around the room once more before swiping up another gourmet chocolate and covertly stuffing it in her mouth.

Rachel stifles a giggle at the girl's ridiculous behavior, because, honestly, who is embarrassed about eating chocolate, and turns her attention back to the trio at the piano who have now changed tunes to a raucous rendition of Single Ladies. She grins at her friends' antics before turning back towards the blonde that had been occupying her thoughts as of late. She frowns confusedly at what she sees.

Quinn is clutching at her throat, almost scratching the pale skin of her neck. Her eyes are wide and her mouth open, though no sound is escaping. Her knuckles have gone bone white while her face is steadily flushing a deep red. When hazel eyes lock onto her own, panicked and frightened, it finally dawns on her.

"Quinn!"

Her choked cry startles the room into immediate silence and eleven sets of eyes widen once they, too, realize the situation. Uneasy glances are shared between shocked teammates, all too stunned to move. Rachel growls in frantic frustration as she rushes to the breathless blonde's side.

"Kurt, go retrieve Nurse Kennedy. Tell her there's an emergency. And call for an ambulance on your way."

She barks out the order as she crosses the room in the longest strides she can manage. She immediately presses a surprisingly steady hand to the panicked cheerleader's back willing herself to recall everything she had learned in babysitter first aid training the previous summer.

"Quinn, can you breathe at all?"

She receives a head shake in the negative and coaxes the girl the bend forward slightly.

"Is it okay if hit you?"

A quick nod is all she needs to bring the heel of her hand firmly down between Quinn's shoulder blades five times in quick succession. A vice grip on the blonde's hip is the only thing that keeps the weakening girl from stumbling forward and falling to the ground.

"I'm going to try abdominal thrusts now, okay?"

Not waiting for a reply this time, she wraps her arms around the taller girl's waist, ignoring the tingles she feels spread throughout her body. She presses her right fist just above where she guesses the girl's belly button is, though it is difficult to tell through the thick material of her cheerleading uniform. She expertly grasps her fist with her left hand and quickly thrusts upward, trying not to marvel at how firm the girl's abs are. Quinn continues to clutch at her throat throughout the duration of the five thrusts, however, and Rachel is dismayed to find that her efforts remain in vain.

The blonde's eyelids are beginning to flutter and her lips are turning a sickly shade of blue. Rachel knows it won't be long before she loses consciousness. She begins to alternate between the back blows and abdominal thrusts, doing everything in her power to ensure Quinn will breathe again. She's on her third round of abdominal thrusts when she feels the taller girl go completely limp in her arms. She struggles to keep the slumping form of her teammate upright. She glares at the other in the room that have merely been watching the emergency unfold in shock as she strains under the dead weight.

"Finn! Mike!" She barks at the two terrified boys. "Help me lie her down on the floor! Hurry!"

The two boys almost trip over themselves in their haste to aid the angry brunette. She growls at Finn when he clumsily almost drops Quinn to the floor and shoos the boys away when the blonde is safely on her back upon the cold linoleum. Rachel drops to her knees and presses her ear to the cheerleader's chest, listening for any sign of the girl breathing. Hearing none, she tips the unconscious girl's head back, opens her mouth and slips tan fingers between the blue lips.

Ignoring the quiet sound of disgust from Mercedes, she pushes in as far as she can, sweeping her finger along the opening of the girl's throat, cursing when her search for the airway blocking confection comes up empty. Extracting her saliva covered fingers, she moves her hands to the center of the blonde's chest, placing the heel of her right hand against the girl's sternum with her left laid over it and begins rapidly pushing down with her body weight to begin chest compressions.

She counts to thirty before once again pushing her fingers into the cheerleader's mouth. Her eyes sting with tears at how _cold _the girl is already becoming. Rachel would be happy for the blonde to wake up, call her 'Treasure Trail', and never speak to her again if only she could hear her voice and see those fiery hazel eyes once more. Her digits slip around in the slick cavity finding nothing but teeth. The brunette is about to withdraw her hand and try the chest compressions again when the tip of her index finger bumps against something solid in the opening of Quinn's throat. Carefully, as to not push the spherical chocolate further back into airway, she rolls the dislodged object forward and pulls it from the blonde's mouth triumphantly.

She stares down at Quinn's face, willing her eyes to open, for her to just _move._ With baited breath, she lays her head against the blonde's chest. Nothing. She chokes back a sob as she discovers her teammate is _still_ not breathing. There is a sound at the door and Kurt barrels into the room with the terrified nurse in tow.

"Here's Nurse Ken- Oh my god, is she dead?"

"She's not breathing."

She takes in the nurse with her hot pink acrylic nails, the beehive of hair piled on her head, and the orange shade of her skin. She looks like she's just out of college and she's watching the pair on the floor with panicked eyes. A sick, sinking feeling settles in the pit of her stomach. She turns her attention to Kurt as she begins chest compressions once again.

"Where's the ambulance?"

Kurt's eyes go wide.

"You didn't call, did you?"

She is actually crying when she reaches thirty and tilts the blonde's head back. Pinching Quinn's nose and opening her mouth, Rachel steels herself as she leans down and presses her mouth against the other girl's, wishing with every cell that it were under different circumstances that their lips are touching for the first time, and delivers two breaths to the prostrate girl before resuming the chest compressions.

She's pinching the delicate nose and leaning forward once more when hazel eyes snap open and lock onto her own and the girl below her gasps, filling her oxygen depleted lungs. Rachel releases the panting girl's nose in shock. Quinn continues breathing deeply, her eyes remaining fixated onto her savior's. Rachel is the first to move, lunging forward with a choked sob and flinging her arms around the cheerleader's prone form. She is surprised to feel slender arms encircle her waist and pull her close.

"Y-You saved my life," the blonde manages between wheezes. She groans and lets her head fall back against the tile floor. "I'm never eating chocolate again."

Rachel sniffles out a chuckle as she strokes pale cheeks that are as tear streaked as her own.

"I thought I lost you." She tries to hold in what she's hidden for years, but it comes out anyway in the aftermath of the traumatizing experience. "I love you, Quinn, I love you so much." It was word vomit Lindsay Lohan would be proud of.

Quinn's breath catches and Rachel clutches at her tighter, ignoring the collective gasp from her teammates. The girl beneath her pushes at her shoulders until she is sitting up and gazing down at the unreadable expression on Quinn's face. Her face is still flushed and her eyebrows are furrowed in a way that Rachel would think was cute if she wasn't so damn terrified. The moment the blonde opens her mouth to speak, the choir room door is flung open and the paramedics come charging in, shoving Rachel out of the way and strapping an oxygen mask to Quinn's face.

Rachel catches Quinn's eyes once more as the cheerleader is being wheeled out of the room on a stretcher. It's even harder to read what the girl is think with the mask covering her mouth, but the emotion swirling in hazel eyes is enough to send the brunette stumbling back into Kurt's arms. She doesn't even realize she's crying again until a sob wracks her small frame and she's being pulled into, surprisingly enough, Brittany's embrace.

"Don't worry, she knows now. Just give her time."

And although she's strangely comforted, all Rachel can do is cry into the taller girl's chest.

* * *

**Sequel/Continuation? Yes? No? Also, please review if you want!**


End file.
